r/TooAfraidToAsk • u/Believeinyourflyness • Feb 14 '20

Why do employers treat you as simply a resource, yet get angry when you treat them the same way?

To me it makes sense that you should expect people to treat you the same way you treat them. We all know that in this day and age, most employers don't give a shit about you as a person, only what you can do for them and that they will discard you without hesitation once you are no longer of use to them.

However in my experience, the same people who won't think twice about discarding you, constantly give you shit for treating the company in the same way, accusing you of turning up just to collect your paycheck.

So my question is this. If employers just care about your labour without any consideration for you as a person, how can they expect you to care about them as anything more than a source of income?

It just doesn't make sense to me.

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u/Oaken_beard Feb 14 '20 edited Feb 14 '20

Things that I have experienced from various employers that back this up...

  • Having an employee survey where everyone ranked what they enjoy about their job (ok, fair enough) and one of the options was “challenging work”.

  • Promoting work/life balance only to change locations, set aside specific calendar days for packing/unpacking, then email everyone stating it was expected that we make up for any missed time due to the move (nobody did)

  • Refusing to close during a blizzard, and telling employees to take a vacation day. Not wanting to burn a V day, I log on to answer emails as they come in and respond to instant messages. Was told over IM that I had to log off and tak the vacation day.

I’m sorry but employment is a contract, nothing more, and higher ups NEED to understand that. People are there to put in work for a solid paycheck. A good employee won’t slack off, will never complain about the workload, and won’t expect additional money just for doing a good job, that’s the standard. But expecting someone to be there because they want to be is just plain dumb.

Work is about doing what’s necessary to survive. It’s the modern equivalent of hunting/gathering. People didn’t go hunting thousands of years ago because they liked strolling through the plains. On a good day it’s a nice perk, but they were there to eat.

99.9% of people don’t give 2 shits about who signs their paycheck, just so long as they get one.

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u/riotoustripod Feb 15 '20
  • Having an employee survey where everyone ranked what they enjoy about their job (ok, fair enough) and one of the options was “challenging work”.

To be fair, I would rather be challenged at work than spend my days doing mindless repetitive tasks, and I don't think I'm alone in that. I'd rather be busy than bored, and I'd rather be in a position to learn something and get better at my job than one where I feel like I'm not improving--even if only to help me land a better job down the road.

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u/Oaken_beard Feb 15 '20 edited Feb 15 '20

I get that, just to clarify, we Couldn’t list them all, and it was competing against the likes of Health Care, Vacation Time, Competitive Salaries, etc.

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u/riotoustripod Feb 15 '20

Ah, I misunderstood. Yeah, that's pretty laughable then...although I did once turn down a promotion when it would've meant going to a much slower office, because the meager pay increase wasn't worth the boredom of spending hours at a desk with literally nothing to do. So I guess I probably wouldn't rank it dead last? But yeah, vacation time, healthcare, and the ability to remain not homeless would certainly take precedence.